My water broke on St Patty's Day, Saturday morning, around 8:30-9.
I paged the doctor on call and after cleaning off the car and some of
the driveway of snow(that's what DH did) we headed out. Contractions were
very minor. We arrived at the hospital by about 10:30 I walked around
a lot and we were admitted and put in a room by 11:30. I still wasn't
really having contractions. 12:30 and I had the iv peniccillin for
the GBS. 12:45 the pitocin was started and I was put on the telemetry
monitors. Rick and I walked around and around. My nurse and the
doctor (not my ob but the covering ob) were really wonderful. Most
everything was posed as a question. . .what I wanted really mattered.
My birth plan was found in my chart and everyone obviously read it,
even though it was signed by a totally different OB, from a totally differentpractice.

The pitocin was slowly bumped up bur wasn't making a whole lot of
change. It wasn't until 4:30pm that I was having regular
contractions, at that point they were 3 minutes apart lasting 30
seconds.

At 6:30pm I was checked, 4 cm 80% effaced. Finally some progress. At
that point Henry had also dropped down a bit more and the bugger could
no longer be picked up on the external monitor. I agreed to an
internal monitor so that I could maintain the ability to sit and move
around and stand. They had telemetry even for the internal monitor. DH also thought the internal monitor was pretty
cool, particularly when I started to push and he could see how fast
and how far the wire came out as I bared down (sort of like a tire
pressure gauge).

By 6:45pm I was really feeling it in my outer upper thighs and
buttocks. Things were getting really intense, DH asked if we could
remove or at least now lower the pitocin. They were reluctant, not
wanting my labor to stall. Ha, if they only knew.

At 7pm the nursing staff switched (funny that it was similar to when
Libby was born, the nurses switched about an hour previous to her
birth as well).

At 7:20pm I was feeling the urge to push. I was checked again and had
gotten to 8 cm completely effaced in less than an hour. I was doing
what I could to move around in little bits and to only gently bare
down (not easy because I really wanted to push).

I was up over the head of the bed. Feeling the need to strip off at
least my shirt, told the nurse that I needed my IV heplocked off so I
could take my shirt off. . She made it happen toot sweet and I felt
slightly better with the cool air on my skin. Everyone was suiting
up, I was in this completely primal place. Because of the position I
had put myself in they offered me the squat bar and installed it on
the bed. I tried squatting with it by eneded up looking like some
strange and dangerous circus show, they switched the direction of the
bar and I got underneath it (instead of dangling over it) and ended up
using it as more of a pull-up bar.

The OB and the nurse were very supportive and used only calming
voices. Trying to get me to breath. My body had completely taken over.

At 7:50 I was complete. Thank goodness because I really couldn't hold
off any longer. The contractions seized up my whole body, between each
contraction I went totally limp. At one point I stopped myself
because I was so almost going to bite DH on the shoulder, hard. . If I hadn't been able to fight that urge he probably would have needed stitches.

I remember feeling the ring of fire and thinking I should attempt to
take it a bit slower the other voice in my head said to hell with that
just get this over with. It was over pretty quickly. There was a
mirror that I was sort of watching (my glasses were off). . .I
remember thinking it was sort of like a reverse roadrunner cartoon.
Nothing there then whoosh, an entire other being. His official birth
time was 7:54pm. 4 minutes of pushing. His apgar's were 9 and 9. They put him immediately on my chest
skin to skin and put a blanket over us so I could warm him. We stayed
like that cuddling and nursing while I birthed the placenta and
received a few stitches. After an hour I let them take him briefly
over to the table, they didn't give him vit k as per my birth plan. After
weighing and measuring him he was brought right back to me for more
skin on skin time.

His blood sugar numbers were low, they wanted to take him up to the
NICU to be tested on the better machine that they have up there. The
on call pedi came to talk to us about that. Again everything was
posed as a question, what my preferences were. DH went upstairs
with Henry to the NICU and I was brought to my room on another floor,
after a trip to the bathroom.

I was given a great corner room that was actually on a spur of the
main hallway so there was no foot traffic outside. Later found out
that I had this amazing view of the Boston skyline. The nurse settled
me in asked me if I needed anything and was off. The postpartum nurse
came soon afterwards to check me in. DH and Henry
showed up and my tasks were to get him skin to skin to warm him up and
get him to nurse. I held him in close gently rubbing the vernix into
his little body. Nursing was a bit tough, he was so mucousy because
of the too quick trip out, but he got it. He did have to go for a few
quick trips up to the NICU just for blood sugar levels, all of which
he passed on the better glucometer there.

Everyone agrees that he is perfect and brilliant. Everyone also agrees that the outcomes wouldn't have been as
excellent as they were had I stayed at the other hospital.

Oh Be, what a lovely story - I'm so glad you had a good experience! Sounds like your OB and nurses were fabulous -I'm so happy for you! Henry is such a cute name too - It was on our short list.

I had pitocin with Robin's birth w/o pain meds - it's pretty intense. I'm glad you were able to get the meds removed once they'd done their job - a lot of nurses and docs would have faught you on that one. And so glad Henry didn't have to linger in the NICU.

Thanks everyone. It was a really positive experience. Sure I would have liked to avoid the pitocin. It would be really nice to birth without it for once. Otherwise it was a wonderful birth. I would definitely birth at the same hospital again.